in this matter, is no less intelligent, marked and decisive, than that of their agricultural brethren, though they have fewer organs and advocates. Why should we halt in our career? What have we to fear? We and our cause, are at this moment stronger than all the legislatures, and congresses, and colleges on the continent, even if they were all pitted against us. But the great majority of them are most warmly and efficiently for us. They are our ablest and most valued advocates and friends. There may be "old fogies" among them: so there are among us: these fossil remains of a prior formation always will exist everywhere. It is well they do; for without them we should never be able to demonstrate the floods of darkness and prejudice that have, in past ages, deluged the human mind. In this case there are no more of these old conservatives, now extant, than will be really needed by our new universities as cabinet specimens of a monkish age just gone by. They will serve as a connecting link between the mummies of the catacombs, and the whirling, buzzing, living, lightning world of our own time. Some few of these philosophic owls affect to be greatly distressed lest a war of classes and professions should be provoked in this effort, because, forsooth, we are obliged to speak distinctly and decidedly of the peculiar wants, duties and rights of the different classes of society. Now the history of the whole world shows there never was and never could be such a war of classes incited by any means whatever, in any State or community, unless there was ample and justifiable reason for it; and whenever such reasons may exist, the sooner such a war comes, the better, if the unjust causes are not at once removed. Do these alarmists, then, pretend that any such causes exist in this country, connected with the scheme of industrial and professional education? We do not believe it: such an assumption is a slander upon the institutions of the country, as well as the men in it. So far from it, no other single subject could be named, to which the whole heart of all the freemen of this Republic, of all classes and professions, would so spontaneously and unequivocally respond. Let those who always take a step in advance, as though the whole continent were paved with rotten eggs, tread as carefully as they please: but let those who are men, advance like men, with fearless step, as if on the green, solid earth, amid brave and generous freemen like themselves.

That such a measure should in any possible respect injure and retard any other institution or interest of any value to mankind, is, clearly impossible: but that it should necessarily increase the means and instruments, and exalt the utility and power of good in all such institutions and interests, is equally evident, and is seen and felt by all the best minds in all classes in the nation. That there are always great and eminent dangers attending their incorporation, all thinking men well know. If consigned to corruption, imbecility and folly in any of the several States, (as some similar institutions, doubtless have been,) the money expended in the endowment will be, of course, perverted, or lost. But is this necessary? Is there not wisdom enough, and patriotism enough in Congress and in the several States combined, to preclude the probability, if not the possibility of any such perversion or abuse? Or, if errors should occur, and loss and damage in some cases ensue, would not experience, and the example of other States correct the evil, and, ultimately, each free State learn to control, wisely, the means indispensable to its own education, development and welfare? If not, then, they are obviously not yet fit for self-government, which, necessarily, implies self education.

In the grant of lands, Congress has the right, and doubtless, ought to prescribe some uniform, wise and patriotic conditions to the grant, which should, as far as possible, place it, in all coming time, beyond the reach of all partisan, local and sinister passions, interests and impulses, and leave it only in the hands of the "sober, second thought," of the people of the several States, through the proper Courts and Commissioners, or regents appointed for the purpose, and well qualified for the trust.

It appears, from the report of President Hitchcock, of Amherst College, to the Massachusetts Legislature, that there are, in Europe, 352 such institutions; many of which he visited, and all of which exert a powerful and salutary influence, by the diffusion of intelligence, and by the improvement of these time honored arts. In France there are 75 under government patronage. To one of these she made appropriations in 1849, of half a million dollars. Another has already graduated 600 well educated agriculturists, who immediately found honorable and lu

crative situations at the head of their professions. Monarchial Russia has 68 of these schools, some of which are of a high order, and superior to those in other lands! Cannot each of our confederated republics afford one such institution?

The Hon. M. P. Wilder, in the same address quoted above, estimates the annual loss of the single State of Massachusetts in the one product of her cereal grains, for want of the knowledge and skill which such institutions alone can impart, at two millions of dollars.

This would give to the Union, at the same rate, on this single product, an annual loss of, at least, sixty million dollars.

A gentleman who has great practical experience, in the line of stock, dairy, &c., in Massachusetts, reports the loss through the same ignorance and unskillfulness in these interests of Massachusetts, alone, at 15 millions dollars.

(See Patent Office Reports 1851, page 28.)

This would give to the thirty States, if Massachusetts be taken as an average, an annual loss of 450 millions of dollars, in another single department.

In other departments of agriculture, and in all our buildings, improvements and use of mechanical skill and labor, it is no better, and in many respects, even worse, as every intelligent man will admit. Surely, then, if these things are so, is it true that "for lack of knowledge the people perish," as well in their temporal as their eternal interests. Both are governed by the same law and are bound to the same fate, like the bodies and souls of men.

PROPOSED PLAN OF ACTION

Let every Agricultural Society and every Mechanics' Institute, every State and every neighborhood, at once procure Resolves of their corporations, or the signatures of their friends, and forward to Congress the following petition or one of similar form, and adopt suitable petitions for and from their State Legislatures, and forward to the Chief Executor of the League a copy of the same.

The

Would respectfully petition your honorable body for a grant of Congress Lands to each State in the Union to

endow therein an Industrial University for the liberal and practical education of the Industrial classes in their several pursuits and professions in life. Said grant to be not less in value than five hundred thousand dollars to each State, and to be held in trust for the above uses, accompanied by such conditions and restrictions in the terms of the grant, as shall in the wisdom of Congress, be needful in order to secure this trust forever to the uses aforesaid, and to prevent as far as practicable in all coming time the possibility of such trusts being diverted from their proper object, or made subservient to any local, partisan, or sectarian end inconsistent with the appropriate use of such trust.

MEMORIAL

To the Honorable the Members of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Illinois:

The undersigned, citizens of this State, regarding with admiration the facilities which the civilized world at present affords for the liberal education of the members of the learned and military professions, and justly appreciating the benefits which they have derived therefrom in their pursuits in life, desire the same blessing for ourselves, and our children, and for each and all the members of the industrial classes of this State. We, therefore, would humbly pray your honorable bodies so to dispose of the Fund given by the General Government to this State for the advancement of learning, that a State University may be endowed with ample means for the liberal and practical education of all classes in society, each in their own several pursuits in life; and that these funds may be immediately committed to a Board of Trustees for this purpose in general accordance with a plan of the Convention already approved by large numbers of our most intelligent and patriotic citizens.

L. S. PENNINGTON, Whiteside co. J. T. LITTLE, Fulton Co.

WM. A. PENNEL, Putnam County

I. There are now in the hands of the State of Illinois, $150,000 in money, and about seventy-two sections of land selected at an early period, and probably worth as much more.

II. The land and money, was donated by the General Government, to this State, as a trust fund, apart from and independent of the Common School Fund.

III. With this fund the State is required by Congress to establish a STATE UNIVERSITY or High Seminary of learning.

IV. The members of this industrial league are such, and such only, of the inhabitants of the State of Illinois, as desire that when this State Seminary is established, it shall be upon the following rational and impartial principles:

V. It shall be designed to furnish to the great Industrial classes of the State, our Farmers, Merchants and Mechanics, each in their own sphere, the same thorough, liberal and practical education in those various sciences underlying their several pursuits, and in all processes, principles, and arts connected therewith, as our colleges and professional schools now afford to their students of Theology, Medicine, Law, and the art of War; and shall be provided with all needful apparatus, lands, grounds, gardens, animals, drawings, models, instruments and engines, for the proper elucidation of the same as other schools are provided with their necessary apparatus.